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page 56 Monday, August 27, 2012
2012 Art and Balloon Festival
Wisconsin Kiters fly high over Lincoln
Saturday afternoon, kites were a dominant feature of the activities going on at the Logan
County Airport during the annual Lincoln Art & Balloon Festival.
The Wisconsin Kiters Club returned for
the second year to show off the beauty and
excitement of kiting.
Mike Wagner, club president, said that
having the kites in Lincoln both this and last
year is due primarily to Jim Phelan, a popular
balloonist at the Lincoln festival.
Wagner explained that he met Jim and
his wife, Theresa, last year at a festival in
Wisconsin. The Phelans were there with their
balloon Good Greeph. Wagner said they
spent time together during that festival, and
then a couple of weeks later he received an
email from Phelan asking if the club would be
interested in coming to Lincoln.
Wagner said the club came last year and
spent Saturday afternoon flying kites at the
Logan County Airport. At that event, there
was no evening launch because of wind
conditions, so the club kept their kites up
until right before the glow, and they did a kite
demonstration.
When all was said and done, they were
asked to return to Lincoln again this year.
This year was much the same scenario
when the kiters arrived at the airport on
Saturday.
At the Saturday morning fly-in, the winds
had been calm and balloons had flown, but
as the morning progressed, winds picked up
and continued to be strong throughout the
afternoon and into the evening.
Wagner said that though some may believe
strong winds are good for kiting, that isn’t
necessarily true.
Saturday afternoon Wagner and the other
club members had several kites in the air, but
Wagner said there were a lot more left in their
bags in the vehicles because the winds were
too strong.
He explained that with kiting, there are
safety concerns just as there are with balloons.
The larger kites are often anchored in the
ground to keep them from getting away. If the
winds are too strong, the kites can pull up the
anchors and take off.
As though to prove his point, at that
moment a member of the club shouted that a
kite was loose, and other members took off
running across the grass runway to try to catch
it. Fortunately the kite encountered one of
the portable lights along the runway and its
impromptu journey was stopped.
Wagner said kiting is a very popular sport
around the world, and there are hundreds of
clubs consisting of folks like the Wisconsin
Kiters who enjoy designing, building and flying
all kinds of kites.
The Wisconsin club has approximately 75
member units. Wagner said the memberships
in the club include all the members of a
household, so, including spouses and children,
the total number of people involved in the club
exceeds 200.
In the United States, the two most active
clubs are the Kansas City Kiters out of Kansas
City, Kan., and the Wisconsin Kiters. Wagner
said the membership roster for the Wisconsin
club includes folks from Wisconsin, Illinois,
Iowa, Minnesota and Kansas.